Wait! I want a do-over - Instead of ending world hunger, how much would it cost to get Bono to shut up for a year?
I work for a Lottery (BRitish Columbia Lottery Corporation).
You can buy tickets with a credit card here (at a corner store, or online at our website).
Also anything won in Canada is TAX FREE. So if you win $10 Million dollars, you get a cheque for $10 Million dollars!
I always said if I won a big lottery, the first thing I would do is cancel my existing phone service, have a quick meeting with my investment planner and take the wife and kid and go on a 6 week vacation to the middle of no where.
Basically if I won anything over $4 million, I would invest $2 million for retirement, then use the other $2 million to buy a new house ($500-600k) and replace our vehicles ($80-100k) and share a bunch with our with family.
I would still work, but with 2 new vehicles and no house mortgage our quality of life would increase a decent amount.
MtM
I believe the exact same amount.
My aunt won the MegaBucks (MA Lottery) for $2.3M in 1987. It turned out to be like $90K a year for 20 years. By year 5, upon receipt her $90K was sent to creditors. She was still working full-time.
If anyone’s curious as to just how badly she spent the money, I’ll post it – surprisingly enough, it wasn’t drugs, gambling, or bad market investments.
I’ll bite, DudleyGarrett. How’d she spend it?
Yeah, I’m curious, too, especially since you’ve eliminated a bunch of obvious ways to blow it.
20 year-old scotch and 40 year-old hookers, I’ll bet.
Yeah, 90% of money management is half mental.
My brother-in-law and sister-in-law inherited close to two million dollars.
They spent 300k in the first nine months.
They also bought a beach-front condo with annual taxes of 6k/year and 550/month condo fees, in an area that was flat DURING the housing boom. They bought a larger home, two new cars and a new corvette. Their primary home taxes doubled from 3500/year to over 7k/year.
Their income went up by zero (no, it actually went down because my sister-in-law quit her job) but their debt went through the roof.
They have incredibly higher car insurance rates, home insurance rates, new condo fees and property taxes, utlitiy bills they never dreamed of…
…and they paid off their mortgages, which offered the only tax deductions they could use…
…and failed to invest or protect any of the money.
Their net income is way down because of the tax situation and my sister-in-law quit her job.
They have upwards of 15k - 20k/year in new debt, a net income that is about 50k less than it was and the only thing that had decent potential (beach front condo) was in a flat market when they bought it and is now worth less than they paid.
Last week my sister-in-law was showing me the two flower planters that she trash picked.
The first thing she did was go out and buy a Lincoln Towncar with a custom paint job and some fancy leather roof, and she wanted it NOW. I think the cost there was like $35k. In 1987. For a car.
Next thing: She, my uncle, and their four kids lived in a ranch home in a blue collar town in central Massachusetts. She had to upgrade the home. She spend over $300k in home improvements. They already had an underground pool, which she had excavated and replaced with a fancier one. They added a second floor onto their house, complete with central AC and all the fixings.
She then left my uncle for some young gigolo from California. She’d fly to Arizona and pay for his plane ticket and all accommodations in a 5-star resort (the Phoenician in Scottsdale). She’d give him some money for services rendered. This happened about once a month for 2 or 3 years.
FF to 1991. She wants a new car. She goes to trade in her $35k pimpmobile and is shocked to find out that it’s only worth (for a trade-in) $6k. She trades it in for a Porsche. Then she thinks the Porsche is too fast. She keeps the Porsche and buys a Honda Del Sol. That $90K a year? Credit cards, car payments, and home equity loans.
Couple of things to add:
She paid for one of her son’s education – he’s got a M. Ed. and is a teacher.
Another son’s got some problems. She’s had to pay his medical/legal fees since he got into a lot of his “stuff” after 18 and wasn’t covered medically.
She bought another son a house.
Her daughter has been pretty detached and as far as I know, got a new car a couple times.
These expenditures have perpetuated the whole annual “sign your Megabucks check over” event.
And the scotch…?
I’m sure there was plenty of that. Glenlivet 18-year and Johnny Walker Blue for that girl!
That’s the thing. 2 million or so dollars in the bank is NOT rich! Sure, you’re doing better than most people…but that 2 million dollars will only buy you a respectable upper-middle-class lifestyle. Think in terms of what that money will return every year—something like $100,000 a year in income. It would be dead easy to blow a million bucks just on dumb stuff–a few cars, some bad real estate decisions, and you’re back to square one.
Now, I would be set for life on 2 million–because my lifestyle would be unchanged, the only difference is that I’d stop working.
Now having put some thought into this, I’d blow it all as fast as possible, but keep my job. I’m doing well and always have a little bit extra after expenses. My 401(k) and other savings are going as expected, so an extra $2 million would just be fun money. I’d have to be careful not to buy anything that needs lifetime maintenance. So instead of buying a beach house, maybe I’d lease one. Instead of buying the LearJet, lease. Instead of buying a cocaine farm in Colombia, I’d just purchase my cocaine on the street. My wife would be opposed to prostitutes I imagine, but we’d have enough fun with $400 bottles of tequila. Once the money’s gone, then it’s back to life just like today, but with the experience of having lived it up!
I’d have a huge bonfire of my winnings because I sneer at money; the paper chains that enslave the workers, allowing their drips of seat and blood to oil the machinery of capitalism.
Just kidding. I’d get a hybrid Camry.
Dude, you could get a Hummer H2 to keep the hybrid Camry in when you’re not using it. If you’re worried about your soul, you can always buy carbon offsets.
Yep, the scary thing is, just put it all in an ING account making 5% and you make another ~$3B per year - thats another $8M per day!!!
Bumped.
Here’s AOL News on 21 lottery winners who then went broke: 21 lottery winners who blew it all
I don’t buy lottery tickets but I do have £1,000 Premium Bonds. This gives me 1,000 chances in a monthly lottery which pays out one £1m prize and a bunch of others, all tax free. I can withdraw my £1,000 any time I like.
The prizes come from the interest on the total money invested, calculated at a measly 1.35%. Odds of winning something each month are around 26,000 to 1.